Spanish operator Renfe has completed the registration of its branch in Lyon in the French commercial register. The company can start commercial activity imminently, and ticket sale for the first services Barcelona – Lyon and Madrid – Marseille will follow this week.

With the opening of its branch in Lyon, located next to the Lyon Part Dieu station, the Spanish company will start selling tickets and other commercial activities immediately. According to the Lyon commercial register, Renfe is now registered for the provision of rail passenger transport services, both nationally and internationally. The neighbouring country is logically a priority market in the Renfe’s internationalisation strategy, as it is the gateway to the rest of Europe.

The first milestone for Renfe will be the commissioning of the new AVE high-speed trains that will link Barcelona to Lyon via Girona and Figueres Vilafant, and Madrid – Marseille via Zaragoza, Camp de Tarragona, Barcelona, Girona and Figueres Vilafant, and French stations such as Narbonne, Montpellier, Nimes, Avignon or Aix-en-Provence. The operator said it will announce in the opening of the sales for this service in the coming days. A launch date for the two services has not been communicated, but services were planned to commence this summer.

Competition follows after cooperation

The opening of its French branch is a logical step after splitting ways with the French state railways SNCF. A Renfe-SNCF cooperation called Elipsos began in 2013 with the launch of the first high-speed international connections in a commercial agreement between the two operators. This came to an end on 11 December 2022 after SNCF decided to discontinue it, originally a one-sided decision.

However, it underscores the development in (mainly Southern) Europe of state operators shifting towards competing with each other, instead of having a cooperation with commercial agreements. SNCF subsidiary Ouigo has been operating trains on high-speed lines in Spain since 2021, which only makes it logical for Renfe to do the same in France. On the Spanish lines with competing operators, the prices have dropped and passenger numbers saw a sharp increase.

Renfe earlier expressed interesting to also run trains across the channel to London, which is one step closer when the trains to France are in view. When RailTech inquired Renfe about the possibility of extending services from Paris to Brussels or Amsterdam, a spokesperson responded that there are no plans for that at the moment. According to a Renfe statement, the next steps now are the expansion of its high-speed AVE trains to the French corridors with the highest density and economic interest for the company, and the positioning of Renfe as a “reference operator for the French public”.

Read more:

• Entry of Ouigo and Iryo in Spain made passenger numbers soar
• Renfe saw its 2022 energy bill explode, eyes new office in France
• Renfe plans to run new trains to France before summer following end of SNCF cooperation